Word: wappinger
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Murdoch began building his Wapping plant in 1980. The following year he opened negotiations with the unions on accepting computer technology and reducing staff. Among other things, he insisted on a legally binding contract, a novelty for the print unions (agreements with British employers are traditionally bound by "trust and...
The printers not only balked at a legal contract but continued to resist the new technology. The old plants, for example, featured a button for stopping presses. The Wapping compound has no such device, but the union insisted that three men should be hired to supervise an imaginary button anyway...
Meanwhile, Murdoch announced plans to print a new afternoon daily at Wapping, called the London Post, and began hiring 500 members of the electricians' union to run the plant. Though officials at News International, Murdoch's British company, insist that the paper is still a possibility, the Post scheme appears...
Negotiations resumed in late 1985, but little progress was made between Murdoch and Brenda Dean, the head of the largest print union. In mid-January Murdoch inaugurated the Wapping plant by producing a special Sunday Times section (it hailed itself as "a landmark in British newspaper publishing"). Furious at this...
They failed. Murdoch promptly fired the 6,000 strikers and within 24 hours moved his papers to Wapping. He persuaded virtually all of his 700 journalists to join him by offering them free private medical insurance and raises of $2,800 a year. He hired a trucking firm to deliver...